Stupidity

Anti-DEA rants on Facebook spark criminal prosecution

Anti-government rants on Facebook can land you in a heap of trouble.

A federal judge has given the green light to the U.S. Justice Department's prosecution of an Indiana man who allegedly posted incendiary remarks about police.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Lawrence in Indiana rejected requests by the defendant, Matthew Michael, to throw out the charges on the grounds that no specific Drug Enforcement Administration agent or other individual had actually been named in the posts.

Lawrence ruled that -- assuming the Facebook postings were illegal threats, which has yet to be proved -- they &… Read more

Pandora defeats privacy suit over Facebook integration

When Pandora was sued for alleged privacy missteps following Facebook integration, it was headline news, with one report saying the Internet radio company had stumbled "into the minefield of privacy lawsuits that are blowing up all over the tech industry." Even the Federal Trade Commission was dragged in.

But that minefield was a dud: A federal court has now tossed out the lawsuit, ruling that no "actual injury" was caused by the April 2010 partnership between Facebook and Pandora that allowed users to tie their accounts together.

The suit claimed violations of an obscure pre-Internet era … Read more

Is technology making political campaigns (even) dumber?

Every time there's supposedly big news on the campaign trail, I fear acid reflux.

What accusations will some fine politician toss at another fine politician in order to sway my stomach -- and thereby my vote?

What ridiculous, illegitimate assertion will be barked by one politician that will spur an opponent to retweet, regurgitate, or resign?

I had always thought politics a grubby business, one in which the energy behind the lie is even more important than the lie itself.

And yet, some esteemed figures believe that the level of political discourse has been brought even lower by technology.… Read more

Rutgers student gets 30 days for spying on gay roommate with Webcam

A Rutgers University student was sentenced to 30 days in jail today for spying on his gay roommate's romantic encounter, an act that may have been related to the roommate's subsequent suicide.

Dharun Ravi, 20, set up the Webcam several times, urged others to watch and tweeted about watching his roommate, Tyler Clementi, "making out with a dude." The 18-year-old Clementi jumped to his death from a bridge a few days after learning about the spying.

Ravi, who faced up to 10 years in prison, was charged with 15 counts, including invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, … Read more

Romney uses targeted Google ads to tweak Obama

If you needed any further reason to alert you to the early arrival of the silly season, Politico is reporting how the Romney campaign is taking advantage of interest in President Obama's commencement speech at Barnard today to game the system to its advantage.

When users search Google for "barnard commencement" in the area of New York City around Barnard and Columbia, the first ad that shows up is a link to Romney's website titled, "Obama's Wasteful Spending." The ad is targeted just to the zip code in which the colleges are located, … Read more

Why we need to keep talking about women in tech

Update: May 15, 2012 In the wake of this article, Christiane Vejlo's English-language account was posted on Reddit, and Dell has apologized on its Google+ page for hiring Mads Christensen to speak at its Copenhagen summit. "Dell sincerely apologizes for these comments," they wrote, saying also, "[g]oing forward, we will be more careful selecting speakers at Dell events."

Update: 11:31 a.m. PT

A lot of women in tech, including me, don't like to spend a lot of time talking about being a woman in tech. In fact, on a panel of … Read more

Ex-White House CIO: Obama's first 40 days were a tech mess

Unfortunately, we usually have to wait until after someone's ready to ring the register for a final time before they're willing to dish on what things are really like. So it was recently with James Whittaker upon leaving Google, as well as with Greg Smith, who published a tell-all about Goldman Sachs in today's New York Times.

In an interview with Computerworld he offers up a couple of revealing tidbits about the sad state of technical unpreparedness at the highest office of the most technologically advanced nation on the planet.

During Barack Obama's first 40 days … Read more

Doomsday Clock moves 1 minute closer to catastrophe

Tick, tock. The infamous Doomsday Clock, which represents how close mankind supposedly is to its annihilation, has been moved one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created and maintains the symbolic clock, announced its decision yesterday.

"It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in … Read more

Newt Gingrich accused of Twitter follower fraud

Husband, father, grandfather, citizen, small businessman, author, former Speaker, candidate for president, and Twitter fraudster? Newt Gingrich is being accused of having more than a million fictitious followers on Twitter.

The provocative blog Gawker has been on an absolute tear over the last few days, accusing Gingrich of using campaign money to hire spam agencies designed to boost Twitter follower counts. The accusations supposedly originate from an anonymous former campaign staffer.

Things got even spicier today, when Gawker cited a new report by New York-based search company PeekYou, which claims to have analyzed every Gingrich follower and to come up … Read more